Being an overworked U.S. Capitol Police officer has become one of the most lucrative jobs on Capitol Hill, with at least 124 cops making well over $100,000, thanks to an incredible demand for overtime and growing security needs.

In some instances, police officers nearly double their base pay in overtime, and in one extraordinary case, an employee earned at least $175,500 — more than what elected members of Congress are paid, according to data released in semiannual congressional disbursement reports, analyzed by POLITICO.

The analysis is not exhaustive but is based on a sampling of the hundreds of salaries contained in the reports.

The Capitol Police — with a work force of nearly 1,800 sworn employees — said in testimony that the massive amounts of overtime pay are the result of increasing demands for security around one of the most tightly guarded office complexes in the world. Reported threats to members of Congress have increased 300 percent in the first three months of this year, and records show there has been a major spike in security sweeps, dignitary protection and bomb squad calls — all of which can contribute to overtime hours.

In one of the most extreme cases, one officer made $86,311 in overtime alone, earning a total salary of at least $175,500, not including overnight or holiday pay. At least four other officers worked enough overtime from September 2008 to September 2009 to double their base salaries, with at least 44 department employees earning more than $134,307 — the average salary of a House chief of staff.

The salary data come from disbursement reports covering Sept. 14, 2008, to Sept. 30, 2009. POLITICO’s calculations did not include extra weekend, holiday or overnight pay, which also can increase income levels.

“The subcommittee continues to be concerned with the Capitol Police budget process,” said Jonathan Beeton, a spokesman for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who chairs the Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee.

Wasserman Schultz along with other members have been critical of the amount of overtime Capitol Police uses. “The high overtime rates are emblematic of the overall issues with their budget and need to be addressed,” she said.

Even department employees who appear to be making entry-level salaries — $56,243 for a newly trained recruit, $63,064 for a private first class, according to the Capitol Police website — brought in six-figure salaries on several occasions during the period. One employee whose base salary was $54,554 earned an additional $45,799 in overtime, for an estimated total of $100,353 over the reporting period.

Another employee was paid $76,566 in base salary but earned an additional $84,175 in overtime, for a total of at least $160,741.

Capitol Police Chief Phillip Morse has taken repeated steps to decrease the amount of overtime, which costs about $53 an hour, according to testimony. The department has requested money to hire an additional 52 officers and 12 new civilian positions in fiscal 2011 to help close the overtime gap. But the overall growing security needs of the Capitol have made overtime reduction a moving target.

“Meeting the mission requirements and protecting the congressional community are our first priorities,” said Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider, noting that officers often are given a choice whether or not to work overtime. “Sometimes the mission requirements exceed the staffing levels. ... Security comes first.”

Yet, the department used nearly 490,000 hours, or $25.5 million, in overtime for fiscal 2009 alone. It estimates it will need a minimum of 525,060 hours and $27.8 million in the coming fiscal year to cover the Hill’s basic security needs. Those numbers don’t take into account the additional police presence and security screenings that will be needed for the upcoming dome rehabilitation project and other major construction projects.

From 2006 to 2008, sworn staff increased 25 percent, but overtime still climbed 80,000 hours, according to congressional testimony. The department — which has struggled with attrition since Sept. 11, 2001, as officers leave to go to other departments — says it still needs several hundred more officers, according to testimony.

While some Capitol Police employees make decent salaries, they also are heavily trained to handle all manner of terrorist threats including bomb, chemical and biological attacks.

Training can cost more than $50,000 per officer for 12 weeks of intensive training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, according to an estimate by one official who requested anonymity. An additional 13 weeks of training is required at the Capitol Police training facility, according to the police website.

Despite Morse’s request for more officers, the overtime earning is likely to continue.

The department is at a point where mandatory overtime is the only way it can keep basic posts filled, including securing the dozens of points of entry to the Capitol building, the Capitol Visitor Center and congressional office buildings, Morse said in the department’s fiscal 2011 budget request.

Capitol Police also have more work to contend with these days.

In fiscal 2009, the department conducted 126 more bike patrols, investigated 108 more suspicious packages and performed 838 more bomb sweeps than in the previous year, testimony shows. In fiscal 2008, more than 8.7 million staff and visitors were processed through the Capitol complex, and 9.02 million were screened in fiscal 2009.

“We are at the point where we cannot assume additional mission load without additional sworn personnel and will have to curtail certain training for officers to meet our expected core mission requirements and continue to stay within our allotted overtime budget” for fiscal 2011,” Morse wrote in testimony.

Despite criticism from members of Congress and pleas from the police chief, the officers themselves seem to enjoy the extra money. In interviews with POLITICO, officers said they often can trade scheduled overtime with colleagues, and the extra income allows some to upgrade their homes, take vacations and save for retirement.

“Some officers love working overtime more than others, and they are usually the ones who work a lot of these hours and increase their earnings,” said one longtime officer who asked not to be identified. “Then, there are some who don’t like working OT at all and are always giving away their additional OT.”

But lawmakers are struggling to figure out how to keep costs down without sacrificing their own security.
“We need to find a way to balance overtime with full-time-equivalent personnel. If you put too many full-time personnel on, it makes overtime cheaper, but we need to find a balance,” said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee.

In past years, the police union has argued that paying massive amounts of overtime would be cheaper than hiring additional bodies and dishing out cash for training, salaries and benefits.

“Should they hire more officers? It’s more expensive for them to do that. By the time you train an officer and pay them benefits, it’s cheaper to pay me, a veteran, to work for time and a half, where nothing will go into my benefits,” one police officer said.

“I really don’t see what the big deal is,” said another officer. “We rarely have to work mandatory overtime. The people that make a ton of overtime are the people who really want it.”

And two top lawmakers who help oversee the Capitol Police also defended overtime costs.

“The U.S. Capitol Police make overtime decisions based on security needs of the Capitol. The department puts safety first and does not make security compromises. This is bound to result in the use of officer overtime, and the department manages that balance very carefully,” stated Reps. Robert Brady (D-Pa.) and Michael Capuano (D-Mass.), who chair the House Administration Committee and its Subcommittee on Capitol Security, respectively.